Ex-Niyo team launch NRI-focused investment app, raise $5 million from Elevation

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Former Niyo and Goalwise executives have launched Belong, a fintech app built exclusively for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) looking to invest and save in India.

The company has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Elevation Capital, with participation from Relentless Ventures and several prominent angels, including Urban Company founders Abhiraj Bahl and Varun Khaitan, Mamaearth’s Varun Alagh, Zomato CFO Akshant Goyal, and PayU’s Vineet Sethi.

Belong claims to be the first fintech to offer USD fixed deposits to retail NRIs via GIFT City. The platform is going live in the UAE this week with its first offering rolled out in partnership with RBL Bank. It is targeting the large Indian diaspora in the UAE before expanding to other NRI-heavy markets such as the GCC, UK, and US.

“We’re building Belong to be the trusted financial home for global Indians starting with simple, secure access to USD Fixed Deposits through GIFT City," said Ankur Choudhary, Co-founder and CEO.

The ideation 

Choudhary, along with co-founders Ayush Singh and Savitri Bobde, had previously built Goalwise, a robo-advisory investment platforms, which was launched in 2015. In 2020, Goalwise was acquired by fintech player Niyo, where the trio continued to work in leadership roles. The fourth co-founder of Belong, Sai Sankar M, a veteran banker with over two decades of experience, had led Niyo’s global cards business as Chief Business Officer.

The four founders came together again after exiting Niyo to build Belong, with the aim of solving the long-ignored challenges faced by NRIs in accessing financial products in India.

The idea for Belong emerged from their own experience trying to serve NRIs in the past and repeatedly hitting roadblocks due to India’s fragmented compliance and banking systems. “Even during Goalwise, we had many NRI users eager to invest, but we couldn’t onboard them due to the KYC hurdles. Fast forward to 2024, and those challenges remain largely unsolved,” Choudhary said.

The product Belong is launching aims to eliminate those pain points. The co-founder explains how today, NRIs must open an NRE/NRO account with an Indian bank, courier notarised documents or visit Indian embassies abroad, deal with currency conversions and relationship managers, and struggle with repatriation.

With Belong, NRIs, starting with UAE, can now invest in fixed deposits denominated in USD without opening an NRE/NRO account. The app offers doorstep KYC, near-zero forex markup, and direct deposit and withdrawal from and to UAE bank accounts. Since the deposit is in USD and operates through GIFT City, there’s no INR depreciation risk, and returns in India are tax-exempt.

“You just download the app, upload your documents, and schedule a doorstep KYC, like booking a home service. There’s no need to visit a bank branch, print documents, or talk to an RM,” he explained.

GIFT City’s regulatory environment has made this possible. Belong is fully licensed by IFSCA, the unified regulator for GIFT City, holding both a Payment Services Provider (PSP) license and a Broker Dealer license. This allows it to directly conduct KYC and manage transactions, unlike traditional Indian fintechs which operate under partner bank licenses.

“We were one of the very first to apply for the PSP license when it launched last year, and we’ve worked closely with IFSCA to launch the first real NRI-facing retail product from the IFSC.”

The startup ran a small beta in the UAE, where around 200 NRIs joined its waitlist and tested the product. “The response was very encouraging. There is a clear gap, and the demand is real—especially among UAE-based Indians who know they’ll return to India eventually and want to start building their retirement corpus here,” the co-founder said.

According to him, nearly 25 percent of India’s $137 billion annual remittance inflow goes into deposits, while less than 5 percent is invested in equities or mutual funds. “This isn’t due to lack of intent. It’s the friction. Many NRIs even route their investments informally through relatives in India,” he noted.2

Belong claims to have also developed a suite of NRI-specific digital tools including an NRI FD Rates
Explorer, GIFT Nifty tracker, NRI Compliance Compass, Residential Status Calculator, and Rupee vs Dollar tracker to help NRIs make informed financial decisions.

The company is additionally launching a dedicated India tax filing service for NRIs without the typical "NRI markup" pricing. "NRIs are usually charged higher and non-standardised rates for most services in India. Belong aims to change that by offering transparent and cost-effective NRI taxation services," the team added.

A tailored investment platform

Belong’s long-term vision is to become a full-stack financial app tailored for NRIs. The next set of offerings will include Indian and US equities, mutual funds, global insurance products, NRI-specific financial cards, and a tax filing service without the “NRI premium” most service providers charge.

The team has already obtained a capital markets license and is working on developing equity and mutual fund products in collaboration with regulators and AMCs. Some of these retail investment products do not yet exist at scale in GIFT City, so Belong is also involved in shaping them from the ground up. “It’s early days for GIFT City, but the regulatory environment is pro-innovation. If built right, this can become the global financial backbone for India,” he added.

“NRIs have long been underserved when it comes to digital-first financial solutions tailored to their unique needs,” said Vaas Bhaskar, Partner at Elevation Capital. “Belong is uniquely positioned to serve this massive, underserved market by combining deep fintech expertise with GIFT City’s regulatory rails.”

While Belong’s current offering is limited to the UAE due to the need for an on-ground KYC presence, the company plans to expand to the rest of the GCC, followed by the UK and North America.